Mark Levinson

Mark Levinson traces its origins to 1972, when musician-turned-audio-designer Mark Levinson founded Mark Levinson Audio Systems in Woodbridge, Connecticut. A jazz double bassist and trumpeter who'd played alongside legends including John Coltrane and Chick Corea before turning his attention to electronics, Levinson brought a musician's ear to circuit design, working with engineer John Curl to create the LNP-2 preamplifier — a product widely credited with establishing the entire concept of "high-end audio" as a category, proving that solid-state circuits could dramatically outperform the tube electronics that came before it.

That founding achievement helped launch the American high-end audio renaissance of the 1970s, and the Mark Levinson name went on to become genuinely legendary among recording engineers and audiophiles alike, used on landmark recordings by artists including Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Quincy Jones. The brand's pioneering work in balanced circuit design and meticulous attention to build quality set a benchmark that's still referenced across the high-end audio industry today.

Now part of Harman International under Samsung Electronics, and based in Stamford, Connecticut, Mark Levinson continues to build amplifiers, preamplifiers, and DACs — including premium in-car audio systems for luxury automakers — carrying forward more than five decades of the uncompromising standard the name first set in a small Connecticut workshop.